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Science Points to God

Posted on: October 1, 2008 - 8:41pm

Incognito

Posts: 36

Joined: 2008-04-15

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Science Points to God

The anthropic principle (Greek: anthropos, "human being" ) states that the universe was fitted from the very first moment of its existence for the emergence of life in general and human life in particular. As agnostic astronomer; Robert Jastrow, noted, the universe is amazingly preadapted to the eventual appearance of humanity (see Jastrow, "A Scientist Caught" ). For if there were even the slightest variation at the moment of the big bang, making conditions different, even to a small degree, no life of any kind would exist. In order for life to be present today an incredibly restrictive set of demands must have been present in the early universe--and they were.

Supporting Evidence: Not only does the scientific evidence point to a beginning of the cosmos, but it points to a very sophisticated high tuning of the universe from the very beginning that makes human life possible. For life to be present today, an incredibly restrictive set of demands must have been present in the early universe:

1. Oxygen comprises 21 percent of the atmosphere. If it were 25 percent, fires would erupt, it it were 15 percent, human beings would suffocate.

2. If the gravitational force were altered by 1 part in 10 40 (that's 10 followed by forty zeroes), the sun would not exist, and the moon would crash into the earth or sheer off into space. (Heeren, 196). Even a slight increase in the force of gravity would result in all the stars being much more massive than our sun, with the effect that the sun would burn too rapidly and erractically to sustain life.

3. If the centrifugal force of planetary movements did not precisely balance the gravitational forces, nothing could be held in orbit around the sun.

4. If the universe was expanding at a rate one millionth more slowly than it is, the temperature on earth would be 10,000 degrees C. (ibid., 185).

5. The average distance between stars in our galaxy of 100 billion stars is 30 trillion miles. If that distance was altered slightly, orbits would become erratic, and there would be extreme temperature variations on earth. (Traveling at space shuttle speed, seventeen thousand miles an hour or five miles a second, it would take 201,450 years to travel 30 trillion miles.).

6. Any of the laws of physics can be described as a function of the velocity of light (now defined to be 186,282 miles a second). Even a slight variation in the speed of light would alter the other constants and preclude the possibility of life on earth (Ross, 126).

7. If Jupiter was not in its current orbit, we would be bombarded with space material. Jupiter's gravitational field acts as a cosmic vacuum cleaner, attracting asteroids and comets that would otherwise strike earth (ibid., 196).

8. If the thickness of the earth's crust was greater, too much oxygen would be transferred to the crust to support life. If it were thinner, volcanic and tectonic activity would make life untenable (ibid., 130).

9. If the rotation of the earth took longer than 24 hours, temperature differences would be too great between night and day. If the rotation period was shorter, atmospheric wind velocities would be too great.

10. Surface temperature differences would be too great if the axial tilt of the earth were altered slightly.

11. If the atmospheric discharge (lightening) rate were greater, there would bee too much fire destruction; if it were less, there would be too little nitrogen fixing in the soil.

12. If there were more seismic activity, much life would be lost. If there were less, nutrients on the ocean floors and in river runoff would not be cycled back to the continents through tectonic uplift. Even earthquakes are necessary to sustain life as we know it.

The mass, the entropy level of the universe, the stability of the proton, and innumerable other things must be just right to male life possible.

Theistic Implications: Robert Jastrow summarized the theistic implications well: "The anthropic principle...seems to say that science itself has proven, as hard fact, that this universe was made, was designed, for man to live in. It's a very theistic result" (Jastrow, "A Scientist Caught," p. 17).

Albert Einstein said: "the harmony of natural law...reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection" (Einstein, 40).

Sources:

J.D. Barrow, et al., The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

A. Einstein, Ideals and Opinions--The World as I See It

F. Heeren, Show Me God

F. Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe

R. Jastrow, A Scientist Caught between Two Faiths: Interview with Robert Jastrow," CT, 6 August 1982

------God and the Astronomers

H. R. Pagels, Perfect Symmetry

H. Ross, The Fingerprints of God

A. Sandage, "A Scientist Reflects on Religious Belief," Truth (1985)

S. Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory--The Search for the Fundemental Laws of Nature

The anthropic principle (Greek: anthropos, "human being&quot states that the universe was fitted from the very first moment of its existence for the emergence of life in general and human life in particular. As agnostic astronomer; Robert Jastrow, noted, the universe is amazingly preadapted to the eventual appearance of humanity (see Jastrow, "A Scientist Caught&quot.

For if there were even the slightest variation at the moment of the big bang, making conditions different, even to a small degree, no life of any kind would exist. In order for life to be present today an incredibly restrictive set of demands must have been present in the early universe--and they were.

Supporting Evidence: Not only does the scientific evidence point to a beginning of the cosmos, but it points to a very sophisticated high tuning of the universe from the very beginning that makes human life possible. For life to be present today, an incredibly restrictive set of demands must have been present in the early universe:

1. Oxygen comprises 21 percent of the atmosphere. If it were 25 percent, fires would erupt, it it were 15 percent, human beings would suffocate.

2. If the gravitational force were altered by 1 part in 10 40 (that's 10 followed by forty zeroes), the sun would not exist, and the moon would crash into the earth or sheer off into space. (Heeren, 196). Even a slight increase in the force of gravity would result in all the stars being much more massive than our sun, with the effect that the sun would burn too rapidly and erractically to sustain life.

3. If the centrifugal force of planetary movements did not precisely balance the gravitational forces, nothing could be held in orbit around the sun.

4. If the universe was expanding at a rate one millionth more slowly than it is, the temperature on earth would be 10,000 degrees C. (ibid., 185).

5. The average distance between stars in our galaxy of 100 billion stars is 30 trillion miles. If that distance was altered slightly, orbits would become erratic, and there would be extreme temperature variations on earth. (Traveling at space shuttle speed, seventeen thousand miles an hour or five miles a second, it would take 201,450 years to travel 30 trillion miles.).

6. Any of the laws of physics can be described as a function of the velocity of light (now defined to be 186,282 miles a second). Even a slight variation in the speed of light would alter the other constants and preclude the possibility of life on earth (Ross, 126).

7. If Jupiter was not in its current orbit, we would be bombarded with space material. Jupiter's gravitational field acts as a cosmic vacuum cleaner, attracting asteroids and comets that would otherwise strike earth (ibid., 196).

8. If the thickness of the earth's crust was greater, too much oxygen would be transferred to the crust to support life. If it were thinner, volcanic and tectonic activity would make life untenable (ibid., 130).

9. If the rotation of the earth took longer than 24 hours, temperature differences would be too great between night and day. If the rotation period was shorter, atmospheric wind velocities would be too great.

10. Surface temperature differences would be too great if the axial tilt of the earth were altered slightly.

11. If the atmospheric discharge (lightening) rate were greater, there would bee too much fire destruction; if it were less, there would be too little nitrogen fixing in the soil.

12. If there were more seismic activity, much life would be lost. If there were less, nutrients on the ocean floors and in river runoff would not be cycled back to the continents through tectonic uplift. Even earthquakes are necessary to sustain life as we know it. The mass, the entropy level of the universe, the stability of the proton, and innumerable other things must be just right to male life possible.

Theistic Implications: Robert Jastrow summarized the theistic implications well: "The anthropic principle...seems to say that science itself has proven, as hard fact, that this universe was made, was designed, for man to live in. It's a very theistic result" (Jastrow, "A Scientist Caught," p. 17).

Albert Einstein said: "the harmony of natural law...reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection" (Einstein, 40).

Sources: J.D. Barrow, et al., The Anthropic Cosmological Principle A. Einstein, Ideals and Opinions--The World as I See It F. Heeren, Show Me God F. Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe R. Jastrow, A Scientist Caught between Two Faiths: Interview with Robert Jastrow," CT, 6 August 1982

This appears cut-n-paste from an apologetics web site. Not only is this aregument old (and refuted) but it's not really even Incog's own typing effort.

"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different."
- Douglas Murray

Thanks IAGAY, well actually, it should be Incognito thanking you, but good work man.

Incognito wrote:

For life to be present today, an incredibly restrictive set of demands must have been present in the early universe:

1. Oxygen comprises 21 percent of the atmosphere. If it were 25 percent, fires would erupt, it it were 15 percent, human beings would suffocate.

Erhh... That's not conditions in the early universe you are talking about there, that's conditions on modern Earth. Just thought I'd point that out.

Incognito wrote:

Theistic Implications: Robert Jastrow summarized the theistic implications well: "The anthropic principle...seems to say that science itself has proven, as hard fact, that this universe was made, was designed, for man to live in. It's a very theistic result" (Jastrow, "A Scientist Caught," p. 17).

Except of course that the whole thing is contingent on the assumption that any of these things could be different. And where is the proof of that? If the speed of light, or gravity, or whatever, could be higher or lower but isn't, because God made it that way, sure... But how do you know it could be different at all? It's all we know to be the case, so how can you assume that other things even could be the case?

Furthermore, all we know is human life, so we look for the things that are needed to sustain human life, but we have no way of knowing wether if the universe was different, life would be impossible, and not just different.

It's like a fish saying: "Just think how amazing it is that the ocean is here. What if things had been slightly different, and there where no oceans, where would all the fish go?

You see?

Well I was born an original sinner
I was spawned from original sin
And if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done
There'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin

If you alter one component this may happen, what happens if you alter all of them, who know what you get, how much do you need to alter them before it doesn't work. Oddly enough humans aren't that well adapted to the universe, we are however very well adapted to Earth. We cannot survive in outerspace without some major help from technology.

How much of a tilt does it need to change 1 degree, 10 degrees a full 45 degrees more? How much oxygen needs to change? 22 percent increased wouldn't damage us, down to 20 wouldn't really damage us. So there are some changes there that we can still live with. However maybe everything is set the way it is simply because that's how it played out. We are the product of this earth, the universe is not a product of us, you unfortunately have it the other way around. As well life can and does survive in various conditions, some of them extreme conditions, mountain goats high in the mountains where oxygen is very thin, maybe if oxygen was thin further down we would have developed in a similar fashion but with the capacity for us to take the most amount of oxygen possible. You are thinking that everything MUST be this way because of a god, it could be it is this way simply because this is how it naturally came to be, and we are a product of this enviroment.

Your argument essentially boils down to 'if things were different, then things would be different.' (ExtantDodo I think? From YouTube)

Furthermore, the fact that the universe is capable of supporting human life is only of significance if human life was needed or desired. In which case you are already operating under the assumption that there is some higher purpose to our lives, or that there is some cosmic being that wanted us to be here. We have no proof of this. So far it seems like humanity is just one of the many possible advents of life, and as such, no more significant than the sentient life that arose in dimension XX1120932-A201 where the speed of light is 1.000001 times the speed of light in our dimension.

An Analogy and Question; Suppose I take several hundred dice and drop them off a 3rd story roof onto the pavement below. They of course land in some mostly random configuration. What are the odds of them landing the specific configuration that they did? Well those odds are impossible to calculate and would likely require the addition of several new tiers of numbers (such as Million Billion etc.) to name in order to get an X:1 ratio. In other words, the odds are inconceivably small. You can say with certainty that the dice landing in that specific configuration is more improbable than finding the ruler of the universe with a space ship made out of a sentient matress. Does that change the fact that they did land that way?

The fact that our specific universe is vastly improbable does not mean that there is some higher power directing it unless you already suppose that it needed to end up this way. The fact that our universe is so vastly improbable only means we should cherish it all the more for what it is than try to make up imaginary story book characters to have set it in motion and thus cheapen our stupendously good fortune. The Universe was not Crafted for us, we were Evolved for it.

All that plagerised text, such a waste. You're basically saying the entire universe was designed and assembled purely for the existance of humans on earth. It's like saying a super-tanker is designed and assembled purely for the existance of the third electron of a single atom 14/25ths of the way through the exhaust.

"My, how wonderfully this hole fits me; like it was made just for me," marvelled the puddle.

R.I.P. Douglas.

Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov

"My, how wonderfully this hole fits me; like it was made just for me," marvelled the puddle.

R.I.P. Douglas.

"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different."
- Douglas Murray

How do people so consistently get the anthropic principle wrong? This is very simple. Since we are here, it is deductively necessary that the conditions necessary for our being here exist. Duh. This principle doesn't prove anything other than what it states. The universe obviously can support human life because we're humans, and we're alive.

The only conclusion that we can draw from the anthropic principle is so self evident that it can only be written as a tautology. IF the univerrse were different than it is, it would be different than it is. Duh. If A then A.

As an easy way to refute the notion that the anthropic principle proves a god, all we need to do is restate the argument with a different conclusion:

The conditions necessary for human life are incredibly specific, and if they were slightly different than they are, humans would not be here. This proves that the universe was created by a race of beings from another universe that need the psychoflux energy from human misery to fuel their transdimensional spaceships. We are the energy source for them, and they designed our universe as a "human factory." This is also how we know that there are humans on billions of other worlds in billions of other galaxies. As new stars form, more humans will come to exist. For as long as there are planets orbiting stars in our universe, the aliens will have plenty of fuel.

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

It pains me to know end that within the space of a day, this OP has gotten so many good replies from so many good people, and it is allready clear, that not only did this person copy-paste an argument that he is unlikely to even have read and understood himself, but he will never read any of the rebutals either... He just hit-and-ran the forums, only to go away naively thinking that he has opened all the non-believers' eyes, and now we are just sitting here being ashamed of ourselves and crying our eyes out, saying: "We're so sorry God! Please forgive us! We didn't know!"

Such intelectual cowardess! Such unvaranted smugness!

GGRrrrr!!!

(see now I went and got frustrated)

And to Incognito: If you are reading this, I retract everything I said above, if you will just make a short reply that you are infact reading this thread. I don't mind if you don't think our replies are enough to change your mind. I don't mind if you continue to believe what believe, if only I can see that you at least have an honest interest in understanding the people you are arguing against.

Well I was born an original sinner
I was spawned from original sin
And if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done
There'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin

Well, good carning Nik .... I try to keep in mind the many silent and future readers of RRS, so all threads are always a win win. Thanks so much for all your bright posts. Go go communication education. I have "faith, and hope", that truth will prevail .... that is my prayer! Amen! LOL

Supporting Evidence: Not only does the scientific evidence point to a beginning of the cosmos, but it points to a very sophisticated high tuning of the universe

...Do you understand math at all? Because, in math, there's this concept of 'percentage'. Basically, something's percentage represents how much of it there is compared to something else. Sometimes you'll see one of your high school teachers mark one of your assignments with a percentage value; the closer to 100 percent the value is, the more answers you got right.

Here is an image showing what percentage of mass the Earth comprises when just the major planets within our own solar system is taken into account:

...And that's the entire 5,974,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg of the planet. Humanity is a very small fraction of the planet's mass (6.5 billion people at about 125 kg (250 lbs) would total about 812,500,000,000 kg).

If we're scoring God on his ability to 'fine tune' our universe (or even just our own neighborhood!) for life, he's bombed it big time.

Quote:

"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

Congratulations. You have copied and pasted that which even the original author willfully misunderstood. It's really far, far simpler than all your quoted pleas to exceptionalism account for:

The universe is bigger than us.

The universe is older than us.

The universe precisely fits the criteria needed for us to exist because we are a product of the universe.

It's like saying 'wow, our hands must have been designed to perfectly fit gloves, because they have just the right number of fingers FOR gloves! One finger more or less, and we couldn't use them at all!'

The hand is not a result of the glove, the glove is a result of the hand. So too: the universe was not tailored to us, we were formed by it.

Really, the Anthropic Principle can be boiled down to 'The world fits us, because if it didn't, we wouldn't be the ones looking at it.' Anything else you, or people you shamelessly steal from, choose to infer is your own problem.

"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid

1. Oxygen comprises 21 percent of the atmosphere. If it were 25 percent, fires would erupt and burn the extra oxygen, it it were 15 percent, a different evolutionary line would have taken place.

2. If the gravitational force were altered by 1 part in 10 40 (that's 10 followed by forty zeroes), the sun would not exist, and the moon would crash into the earth or sheer off into space. Good thing we find ourselves in the universe in which we find ourselves, otherwise we wouldn't find ourselves!

3. If the centrifugal force of planetary movements did not precisely balance the gravitational forces, nothing could be held in orbit around the sun. Likewise, if every action did not have an equal and opposite reaction we would all fall through our chairs!

4. If the universe was expanding at a rate one millionth more slowly than it is, the temperature on earth would be 10,000 degrees C. Once again, good thing we just so happen to be in the universe that we can survive in! How horrible it would have been if we couldn't survive here! I mean, we'd all be dead!

5. The average distance between stars in our galaxy of 100 billion stars is 30 trillion miles. If that distance was altered slightly, orbits would become erratic, and there would be extreme temperature variations on earth. I sure hope no black holes pass by!

6. Any of the laws of physics can be described as a function of the velocity of light (now defined to be 186,282 miles a second). Even a slight variation in the speed of light would alter the other constants and preclude the possibility of life on earth. Take that young earthers!

7. If Jupiter was not in its current orbit, we would be bombarded with space material. Jupiter's gravitational field acts as a cosmic vacuum cleaner, attracting asteroids and comets that would otherwise strike earth. So far it's attracted 0.0675% of the solar system, only 0.015% to go before we're completely safe!

8. If the thickness of the earth's crust was greater, too much oxygen would be transferred to the crust to support life. If it were thinner, volcanic and tectonic activity would make life untenable. Of course, if too much oxygen was in the environment, fires would erupt everywhere and burn the oxygen! So sayith #1.

9. If the rotation of the earth took longer than 24 hours, temperature differences would be too great between night and day. If the rotation period was shorter, atmospheric wind velocities would be too great. Because everyone knows the wind blows because the earth rotates and not because of temperature variations, tidal forces, and the mighty lungs of Poseidon.

10. Surface temperature differences would be too great if the axial tilt of the earth were altered slightly. *sigh* It sure is nice to be on a planet that supports us, rather than one that doesn't.

11. If the atmospheric discharge (lightening) rate were greater, there would be too much fire destruction; if it were less, there would be too little nitrogen fixing in the soil. Never mind the fact that it varies wildly and is actually increasing (thanks to pockets of warmth from global warming), thereby decreasing the size of the o-zone hole we made. And what the hell does lightning have to do with nitrogenation?

And the main reason why you should believe in the triune Yahweh god of Jehova and Abraham, who sent his son/self down as a sacrifice so that he could rule forever over a people cleansed by divine blood for the sin of disobeying his own will is:

*drumroll*

12. If there was more seismic activity, more things would die and if there was less, things would die!

!. Oxygen comprises 21 percent of the atmosphere. If it were 25 percent, fires would erupt, it it were 15 percent, human beings would suffocate. .

.

.12. If there were more seismic activity, much life would be lost. If there were less, nutrients on the ocean floors and in river runoff would not be cycled back to the continents through tectonic uplift. Even earthquakes are necessary to sustain life as we know it.

Why is it that people who cut'n'paste this load of unscientific tripe stop at number 12? Why don't they continue with the rest of the argument?

13. If there were any more clowns on earth, children would be too terrified to go on living, and all humanity would die out. If there were fewer clowns on earth, male adults wouldn't feel the need to be protected from the creepiness and insist on being held, and all women would be lesbians, and all humanity would die out.

14. If there were any more Christians on earth, science would not progress, and we would stagnate and die out; if there were fewer Christians, Elitists wouldn't have anyone against whom to feel superior, and humans would stagnate and die out.

15. If God were just 0.0351% more omniscient, he would've realized Adam and Eve would've eaten of the forbidden fruit, and not have bothered; if he were 0.0924% less omniscient, he wouldn't've known about the big flood, and been able to warn Noah, and all life would've died out on earth (except, as Eddie Izzard points out, the evil fish and evil ducks, through a divine loophole).

16. If the gravity of earth were just 50% stronger, nobody would be strong enough to get their lazy asses out of bed, and all life would die out. If the gravity were much less on the earth, we'd all end up jumping off while playing sports, and end up flying into space, where we would asphyxiate.

17. If just 3.2% more people who cut'n'paste this bullshit were to stick around and bother to understand why it's wrong, these sorts of lists would die out, and couldn't exist.

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers

!. Oxygen comprises 21 percent of the atmosphere. If it were 25 percent, fires would erupt, it it were 15 percent, human beings would suffocate. .

.

.12. If there were more seismic activity, much life would be lost. If there were less, nutrients on the ocean floors and in river runoff would not be cycled back to the continents through tectonic uplift. Even earthquakes are necessary to sustain life as we know it.

nigelTheBold wrote:

Why is it that people who cut'n'paste this load of unscientific tripe stop at number 12? Why don't they continue with the rest of the argument?

13.-16. {nigel's funny stuff}

nigelTheBold wrote:

17. If just 3.2% more people who cut'n'paste this bullshit were to stick around and bother to understand why it's wrong, these sorts of lists would die out, and couldn't exist.

What we have here is the ultimate case of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. In other words, since life is here, it must have been because of god.

This conclusion does not follow logically at ALL. Not only does it not follow logically, but it's arguing from a position of presupposition of the reality of a fairy tale from 2000 years ago.

First and most important, there is no logical chain between ANY of the points raised above (except perhaps the one about clowns) and the existence of god. The conclusion is not supported by the points offered as "evidence."

Second, the argument is fallacious because it assumes that since we are here to observe things, the ideas of creation held by tribesmen in Nazareth must be correct. This is so completely preposterous.

Yet another example of the extreme and bizarre logical breakage afflicting christians.

Let's assume for a moment that there are no possible explanations for the world being the way it is other than God or chance. Let's also say the sum total probability of eveything being the way it is on chance alone is 1/10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10 - a mind boggling number.

Does this validate what you're saying when you say "science points to God"? No it does not. Why? Because the explanation "God did it" is an empty one. It is not falsifiable and makes no testable predictions, and it has no explanatory power because it contains no information on the process of God's supposed creation. It is just an ad hoc postulate being applied to the data after the fact, and it is just a brute fact attempt at explanation that really explains things no better than the brute fact 'things are they way they are'.

What else is wrong with your argument. Lets start with saying that, if an improbability means God is responsible, then it would be rather arbitrary to limit it to this particular improbability. God sure must be busy helping people get good poker hands.

I knew there had to be a reason I haven't been able to win at poker since I became an atheist.

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.

The "Anthropic Principle" is an idea based on the assumption that the fundamental physical laws and the magnitude of various forces such as that determining the rate of expansion of the Universe, and the forces with which fundamental particles act upon each other, appear to be 'finely tuned' to values which are consistent with the evolution of a universe which would allow intelligent life such as ourselves to emerge.

It's scientific basis is that it can be shown that if the strength of any of the forces were slightly different, the universe would not be so suitable. Some variations seem to prevent bodies like stars from forming, or lead to a Universe which would collapse in far too short a time, and so on.

There are many assumptions here.

First, we don't really know just what would be a plausible range for each value to have, so we can't estimate the probability that it would have a suitable value from pure chance, so we really aren't in a position to say whether it really is extremely improbable or just low.

Second, most analyses have tested the effect of varying just one fundamental 'constant' at a time. This excludes the vast majority of the possibilities, all those Universes which differ from ours in more than one 'constant'.

To quote from an article in NewScientist 0f Oct 5 2006,

Quote:

The rising popularity of the anthropic principle worries Harnik and his colleagues Graham Kribs of the University of Oregon in Eugene and Gilad Perez of the University of California, Berkeley. What concerns them most is the methodology of researchers using anthropic arguments to explain the values of fundamental parameters such as the cosmological constant.

Cosmologists using this approach tend to vary one property at a time while keeping everything else in their model constant. This may confirm that only a universe with roughly "our" value of that property will form stars, galaxies and the elements, but it doesn't really give alternative universes a fair crack of the whip. "This can't be right," says Harnik. "It seems inconceivable that the multiverse would have vast numbers of universes all the same except for a difference in a single parameter.

They did some analysis to show that if you allow more that one constant to change, there are other plausible scenarios for a universe that would persist for long enough, with solid bodies, and energy flows, which could be consistent with the emergence of some form of life, although almost certainly quite different from what we see in our universe.

All that is needed is to show that there are a significant number of sets of fundamental values which would allow the emergence of some form of complex life, to show that the Universe is not all that exquisitely 'tuned'. The Anthropic Principle certainly does NOT show that the Universe is finely tuned for specifically human life to emerge.

The remaining arguments are pretty much all expressions of total ignorance of the science involved.

Just to pick one of the more absurd:

Quote:

3. If the centrifugal force of planetary movements did not precisely balance the gravitational forces, nothing could be held in orbit around the sun.

You might as well say that if the force which the floor exerts on the legs of the table didn't exactly match the force which gravity exerted on the table, it would either fly off into space or sink into the floor.

If the tension in a spring holding a weight did not precisely match the weight, the spring will extend, increasing the tension until it does match.

For a planet, if the velocity of the planet in its orbit was higher than what would allow the 'centrifugal force' to just balance the force of gravitational attraction between the planet and the sun, it would not tend to fly off at a tangent, thus increasing it's distance from the sun, and so also the force of attraction. However, in moving away from the sun, it would experience some component of the force of gravity acting to slow it down, so there is no way it would keep moving away - that would violate the Conservation of Energy.

What we find if we do the math is that it will simply settle into a new orbit. If you launch a satellite with the wrong velocity for the intended orbit, it will simple settle into a different orbit from what you intended. Its just the consequence of Newton's laws of motion and the inverse square law of gravitational attraction vs. distance. If it required much more complex 'laws' for orbits to be stable, then you may have the beginning of a argument, maybe.

This is just more 'God of the Gaps', except pointing almost entirely to gaps which don't actually exist, IOW we do have pretty straight-forward explanations for virtually all the phenomena listed...

Of course we don't have solid scientific explanations for every aspect of the Universe, but that in no way points to a 'supernatural' 'explanation'. Once you allow the open-ended speculation of supernaturalism and/or theology, with no real constraints on what you assume may be 'possible', then there are an infinite number of way-out scenarios, the Xian God being just one of them, with little or no methodology for assessing the relative likelihood of any of them.

All even the 'Anthropic Principle' points to is a gap in our understanding, an 'I don't know' situation.

4. If the universe was expanding at a rate one millionth more slowly than it is, the temperature on earth would be 10,000 degrees C. (ibid., 185).

If the universe was expanding at a slower rate as imagined in this argument, this could conceivably just mean that it would take a lot longer (than it has already done in our present universe) to get to the level of matter / space dispersion that we currently have, or for our current position in space to cool to such a level that we could survive here.

So essentially then yeah, under those conditions we wouldn't presently exist as we do now, but we'd just have to wait a lot longer before life got the chance to evolve here. Of course then, under those conditions maybe it wouldn't evolve here, at all in that case, but somewhere a bit cooler - maybe in one of the areas of space which is currently cold and dead and devoid of matter...

Following a logical extension of the above point, maybe we could turn this argument on its head, and state that if the rate of expansion of the universe was any different that it currently is (either faster or slower), then there may well be whole swathes of possible universes in which the areas hospitable to life at particular points along the timeline would be much more abundant than in our current position and time. It could then be asserted that our universe is in fact, much LESS tuned towards our existence than it could be, and hence, it is not very optimally, or indeed "intelligently" designed at all.

So the OP is an asshat.

Hope you're all having a good day out there. Keeping taking the pills.

Genesis 1 seems to make it clear that science and God do not agree. We need a sun to have night and day but in Genesis there were 3 days and nights before there was a sun. In fact, on the 3rd day, there was plant life but yet no sun until the 4th day. If I am not mistaken, photosynthesis is still part of science.

You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe. - Carl Sagan

Prayer has no place in the public schools, just like facts have no place in organized religion. - School Superintendent on "The Simpsons" episode #1

You take 1 agar and can breed a specified type of bacteria on it. Some other type wouldn't surve on it at all. You take another agar, where the first bacteria wouldn't stand a chance to survive, but well, the other type would prosper there...

Or a better comparement you have one agar for bacteria and one for fungi (I hope fungi or fungus is correct... In Slovene it's "plesen" but I don't know the correct name in english), well in the first you can breed bacteria and in the second fungi, as if you place them oposite, they wouldn't survive.

Well, just stup judging the universe on life, and judge life on the universe!

Where your logic is flawed is in the assumption that the slightest variation would make no possibility for life. However, as colossal as the universe is, the probability of each of your prelisted scenarios does make life far more less likely, but more space = more chances for any possible thing to happen. With enough time and space, even something with only an incredibly small possibility of happening is going to happen eventually. The chances are, if something has a one in a billion chances of happening and it's given a trillion chances are, it's probably going to happen.

Simply: the universe is too large to assume life could not have originated somewhere else if something very small happened differently. Likewise, it's too large to assume life does not exist somewhere else (which, by probability, would be somewhere outside of our galaxy.)

The evidence is SO overwheming that God exists. There is something wrong with atheists. There is something wrong with their thought processes. Theosophy teaches that some people don't have souls. I'm starting to think there is something inherently wrong with atheists. But we do know that a person remains in darkness and in a carnal fallen state untill God enlightens their mind. Why He enlightens some people and not others? I have no idea.

Funny how the " overwhelming evidence " can never withstand the scrutiny of even moderatly intelligent skeptics. Perhaps this is because the typical Christian has the same criteria for " overwhelming evidence " as does the typical UFOlogist.

" I can't account for ______. I'm convinced that nobody else can account for ______ either. Therefore, ______ exists! And if anybody can show me the illogic of that, well....well, they're just wrong! "

Yeah, uh-huh. That is some fiiiiiine overwhelming evidence there!

It takes a village to raise an idiot.

Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.

Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.

The evidence is SO overwheming that God exists. There is something wrong with atheists. There is something wrong with their thought processes. Theosophy teaches that some people don't have souls. I'm starting to think there is something inherently wrong with atheists. But we do know that a person remains in darkness and in a carnal fallen state untill God enlightens their mind. Why He enlightens some people and not others? I have no idea.

Maybe he's really just a preteen boy with serious anger issues and an ant farm.

Collapse a few tunnels and screech with glee as the ants scurry about, desperately trying to survive his divine onslaught.

Or, maybe he just doesn't exist, and some belive the fairy tale, others don't.

"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different."
- Douglas Murray

It's SO overwhelming? Is this like one of those, 'So funny I forgot to laugh' play on words?

The idea behind evidence is that you actually need to present it, not just yabber about it's immensity.

Quote:

There is something wrong with atheists. There is something wrong with their thought processes.

Oh, man, you got me! How will I ever recover from this tremendous blow of wisdom? My mind has been sent reeling all the way into the next spatial plane by the impact of your words.

Or something.

Quote:

Theosophy teaches that some people don't have souls.

...Well, I guess 'Theosophy' (whatever the fuck that is) has something in common with atheism, given that the latter also sees that 'some people' (re: everybody) don't have souls.

Quote:

I'm starting to think there is something inherently wrong with atheists.

You already said that, remember?

I don't suppose it ever crossed your teeny-tiny brain that, just perhaps, since you can't think of what might be 'wrong' with atheists but you're somehow so sure that there must be something wrong with them, you might be being manipulated into thinking that?

Quote:

But we do know that a person remains in darkness and in a carnal fallen state untill God enlightens their mind. Why He enlightens some people and not others? I have no idea.

Priceless.

You 'know' (re: You were told) that people are automatically bad, somehow, but God fixes some of them. How? You don't know. Why? You're totally unaware. What evidence do you have to back up that idea? Not a shred.

But you still 'know' that we're evl until we worship God.

Welcome to dogmatic doublethink.

Quote:

"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."